Unnecessarily deep dive into 90s Sailor Moon 🌙

0:10 so, welcome to the review of Sailor Moon 90's show, specifically with some manga and crystal references as well! There's going to be four sections in this video, and each section is going to be introduced to you as it comes along. Enjoy! so, it's time to talk about art aspects of the show. The first pro we're going to talk about is design of the setting, decisions about things like cityscape So, for example right here, we see that the way that it's set up is really pretty, for example shots like this They're really common in the show, it's really cool to see. This looks absolutely gorgeous in my opinion, this is a massive pro for the show. This show genuinely looks

0:57 pretty all the time, at least most of the time, you know? and just a few examples of that would also be for example the fact that all the concrete that's supposed to be grey in the show it's all lavender or purple or pink for example, or any other pastelly kind of colour, depending on time of the day and stuff like that. A lot of setup shots that look like watercolor paintings especially for single shot moments that have some kind of importance, especially it's very common with Haruka and Michiru Whenever they are on screen there's definitely going to be either an entrance or an exit that's going to be made into like a little still, watercolour still, which was probably great for animation in terms of cutting down on the costs, it's great because you get like a few seconds of a still shot and just panning in or out of it, i know that it was definitely influenced

1:44 by the fact that it's so budget friendly, but i don't care. I really like it, i i love those shots i don't care that they're common because they're so budget friendly, i really don't care, it is one of the best things in this show, it looks really pretty and even though it's an old show i actually kind of prefer this old show style, just because it has a lot of texture it seems like. Okay, so one of the cons that we're gonna talk about is animation inconsistency, it's somewhat of a con, not quite as much as it is for many people, because to be honest, i usually focus a lot on the artworks and on the art style and art direction of the shows, but i am not that picky when it doesn't take me out of the experience, and i understand that for many people it's kind of a big deal. So there's a

2:30 lot of different types of directors who worked on this, I mean... if you really look at the names it's obvious that there's a repetition happening, so it's not like every single episode was made by somebody new it's just that they were constantly switching(rotating), each episode would be somebody new, usually like they would kind of switch so there's like a certain(set) amount of people that worked on this show, and, obviously, there are differences, there's a lot of people who complain about those episodes that are animated by Ando, but... episode 54, for example, and like i get what people are saying. They obviously have their reasons, but considering the time constraints and the type of budgeting that they were working with, i'm not really pressed about it to be honest, and i also don't think that it takes you out of the experience that much. Is the animation always perfect? no, but is it going to hinder your experience of this animation? uh, also no, i don't

3:21 think so. Especially if you're not that much of a stickler for art styles and stuff like that, i'm into art, but even i don't mind it as much because i know that the animation was supposed to be done in a certain amount of time. There's a lot of episodes, and i don't think that every single shot is an equally important shot, not every single shot or frame needs to be perfect, as long as it doesn't ruin the overall show, overall art direction and I feel like they managed to have a consistent art direction regardless of many people working on the show, mainly because they definitely had some restraints on the colour palettes and other things like that, and obviously there is already a set design for things, so yeah, Ando has a bit of a rounder face to his characters and animations and

4:09 stuff like that for example, and it's not like i would pick him over somebody else, but i think that it... it will not influence your viewing experience as much as some people say it will, you know? so another pro, somewhat of an extension to the art design and direction which are colouring techniques that are relying on colour theory and incorporates a lot of bright colours specifically, and this point is specifically inspired by the scene from episode 42, where Minako tells Usagi about her experience in England, it's of course true all across the board, it's not something that's specific to that scene, it's just i think that that scene kind of incorporates or shows off this point best First, let me visually demonstrate what i want to underline about the way

4:57 Sailor Moon approaches colours. Okay, it combines a very bright colour with a very bright colour to get another bright colour to kind of tell you that it's a different environment, for example, in the scene that we're going to look at, Minako and Usagi's hair is very yellow, the room uses very bright blue colours and eventually you get this type of green for their hair. Of course if you want to be very dramatic you can go with like a very bright green which would be an interesting choice, but it wouldn't work for specifically dark rooms for example, because you are mixing it with a darker colour, so it's going to get darker, usually you get this kind of colour in those situations. With a lot of other shows, you probably have noticed it, this is a little bit too dark on camera, it's supposed to be a little bit lighter, i don't know why it looks so dark... Usually,

5:45 they try to portray shadows or portray darker rooms by dulling down the colour and darkening it at the same time, so saturation is usually lower, and they usually mix it with black, unless it's a type of show that also approaches it with some blue or some other colour, even when they do that even when they approach it with blue and try to retain the colour, they still turn down the saturation of all colours, so it kind of looks a bit more dull to compare to what you see in sailor moon, so these are the colours that i wanted to draw attention to, pay attention to them in the next clips that i'm going show! so, here we are with this specific scene, you can see that the room is very very blue, and instead of going into really really dark colours, sailor moon tries to save the

6:32 impact of colours even in the dark. So for example, Usagi's hair is really really bright yellow and in this scene instead of going really dark with it, they just go a little bit more green with Minako for example, they also not only keep the colour of her hair to a certain extent of course, but also you can see that her uniform, which is usually bright orange in some parts, is now bright green. It's not dark green it doesn't lose any colour whatsoever they just go okay so mixing two colours, mixing really bright orange and mixing quite bright blue (considering that this is supposed to be representing dark space it's a very bright colour to represent it) and they get this bright green that they use instead of losing all the colour in the scene, they use colour theory

7:21 to show that this is a scene that's going on in a dark space, and i really love that because a lot of shows lose that colour even when it's animated, even when the animation does employ a lot of bright colours, oftentimes they do lose these colors in darker spaces they just go with the mixing with black or with grey, just dulling down the colours and stuff like that this is more of a technique that's quite rare to see, not, of course, insanely rare, but it is rare and i really appreciate that, because i think that it makes the experience a lot more unique i also just prefer colours to stay vibrant even in dark settings tThe thing is with this show is that it's not the only time when it employs really interesting colour techniques, so for example in

8:08 this scene in second season we get this kind of interesting moment where the character is not feeling well, and we kind of go into this colour treatment where everything is inverted like the colours are inverted and stuff like that, and of course it's not like this isn't used in a lot of other animations, but i think that it has a lot more weight when it's in an animation that rarely uses this kind of dark uncomfortable colour treatments, it has... just has more weight when it's used sparingly, especially in an otherwise really bright show, and i really prefer that because it's just more interesting this way and i'm sure that- that also was a really budget-friendly way of showing that someone is not feeling well, just having one still, change the colours and zoom out of them, make it wobble a little bit, and even though it is budget friendly, as an-

8:57 you would know that as an animator, it's still effective and it contributes to the art direction and to this specific flavour of colour treatment that you're using in your show without being too demanding in terms of money and other things like that. It's also used in scenes where there's some kind of shock going on, not just physically feeling unwell, but for example when something's happening like a fight. There's also this scene where you could also see how they were treating the colours in a darker space, right, so this is- the darkness is a little bit of a darker blue, so the colours are also darker, but still it's so vibrant in cool tones. Let's move on to another pro; Transformation sequences! so, with transformation sequences, they are definitely iconic. There's no doubt about it

9:43 right? i thought that sailor moon was the first one to have transformation sequences in animation, i was wrong about that, there's a couple of other shows that kind of implement the same thing but sailor moon is the first one that has a whole squad of girls who are transforming, it's also the first one that popularized it so much and it definitely ingrained transformation sequences into collective consciousness when it comes to magical girl genre. Without these transformation sequences we wouldn't have a million other transformation sequences, we wouldn't have winx that had transformation sequences, we wouldn't have W.I.T.C.H., that had transformation sequences we wouldn't have a million other animations that had transformation sequences, especially when it comes to magical girl shows. I also love how unapologetically girly the transformations

10:31 are, which is something that i wouldn't maybe consciously appreciate when i was a child, (probably didn't, i wouldn't remember) mostly because it is such an important part of showing that power and liking bright or colourful or sparkly things- they don't have to cancel each other out, they can exist together and it's a very important thing when you think about it, having this example Yeah, they're getting earth shaking, planet bending power, and yes, a transformation into a Senshi involves a new outfit, a fresh manicure, and a new makeup look, and it seems like such a small thing that panders specifically to girls preferences, but in a world where most women go through a prolonged stage of internalized misogyny, this type of thing is very important because- i remember not wanting

11:21 to be considered girly when i was a child, because i felt this power dynamic that kind of put you at a lower position in a conversation or in life in general if you were into those things and this type of media is important to to have as an example, because there's so much that you have to unlearn... this could be one of the things that helps you feel like media that's made for girls isn't worse than other things, and actually is a lot better than some things, you know? it takes a lot to unlearn all the things and you suddenly see the value in this combination of hyper feminine fashion and expression of both elegance and supernatural planet creating power. Alright, the next pro! Excellent choreography or scene blocking, even with the limitations of fast produced

12:08 animated shows. So this point is at the same time kind of a con too, mostly because of the examples that i'm gonna show you where choreography didn't really work well, and it wasn't implemented in the right place at the right time. Basically, just some mistakes that i would have probably just ignored if they weren't so- if they weren't implemented in a very specific, very important scene and if it didn't contribute to the scene reading the wrong way. So even though they still managed to have a lot of weight and a lot of power in, for example, senshi's attacks, not all of them were effective to the extent that they should have been effective, but most of them are. At the same time we get absolutely ridiculous moments like this; let me play that again, because this is just-

12:57 i hate it. i hate it! first of all, let's say this scene is creepy, we all know that, (if you've seen the show, if you've seen the show) if you haven't seen the show,, once again this sliding... this sliding in, it's just- i hate it so much! on so many levels, this is just not great, okay? like it just isn't. In any case, this type of sliding across the screen could work really well in comedic scenes. There's a couple of scenes where it also happens with Mamoru, where he's just sliding off the screen, so for example right here where Esmeraude- she saw tuxedo mask, and she's trying to flirt with him, and he just kind of goes "uh... okay..." and just slides off the screen, that's funny. That is good comedic timing! in this case it's part of physical comedy, you know? and in the case of the previous

13:48 scene that i showed you where it's supposed to be all romantic and stuff, like that not only is the scene in itself is creepy because Usagi is passed out, it becomes extremely creepy with Mamoru just sliding into the scene, being all weird and stuff. It's just not the best way to go about this, it's just- uh, it's just not great. it's the same tactic, but it's just not working in one of the cases and it works really well and it's really funny in another case, so it kind of shows what i mean by it being a pro and a con because most of the time it's a pro, most of the time the choreography is great, most of the time, even though this is a 2d animation, it has a lot of weight and a lot of good timing to the movement, to create tension, or create this feeling of the attacks being really powerful for example

14:36 but in some cases, it's just so out of place and it's just not doing what it's supposed to do at all. Most of the time i can't even- i can't tell you- i can't give you a lot of examples of the bad kind of animation timing choreography and and just physical blocking in the shots because it's not that common in this show, so it's- it kind of went into this pro category just because everything is pretty good except for these few scenes where it kind of happens. Okay, another con for this one i've taken some screenshots where i was watching the show, because it made me so uncomfortable, but i decided to kind of not insert them into this video because i didn't want to go and revisit them, and i didn't want to compile them and put them in the video, and i didn't want to have them in the video, but- as a con i would say that upskirt shots or shots that are unnecessarily

15:25 voyeuristic. There's some shots where it's kind of unrealistic in terms of underwear showing from like under the skirts and stuff like that where the camera is being placed in a way where it just kind of makes the scene a little bit iffy, I would say that there's a difference between nudity and voyeuristic shots, at least to me there's a difference, so there's a lot of people who complain about for example nudity. There's moments where Usagi is in her most powerful form at the end of the last season and she is completely naked with the big wings, and i don't see anything wrong with that because it's like the shots are very much referring to angelic forms and the like- uh, paintings, old paintings of angels and stuff like that. It's not sexualized in any way

16:12 it's not uncomfortable to watch at all, so i don't really care for that to be honest, especially like there's moments like for example Usagi and Chibiusa being in a bath together.Chibiusa is a child, Usagi is watching after her, she's- she's washing her, whatever, it's not that big of a deal. i don't think that there's anything wrong with that as long as the shots and is the way that they are set up are not voyeuristic, that's the difference. That's why there's some shots that really make me uncomfortable, because this is an animation, this is not a live feed of somebody filming some kind of sporting event, where- or something active happening on screen, where if somebody is wearing a skirt, a skirt could come up and and you could see something or whatever, it's not an uncontrolled viewing experience. This is something that needs to be drawn, even one second is probably going to

17:00 one second of a show is probably going to involve quite a few frames, we know that on average one second is like 30 frames nowadays, maybe it's a little bit less in old animation, but in general it is a little bit ridiculous that there are so many like upskirt shots it's just there's some of them that i don't mind because they make sense or whatever but some of them are so voyeuristic and creepy that i just can't deal with it, and i don't want to hear anybody justifying that it's definitely male gazy and gross, and i think that this show would have been better without it to be honest, there's no need to do any of that for any of the characters, well- this is a child, maybe dial it down a little, you know? but it's- it kind of gets less prominent and less present as we go on in the series, it's- there you can tell that a lot of male directors were involved, you

17:50 know? another pro! the soundtrack, sound effects, and overall sound design, it's it's really interesting and in my opinion it's really good! first of all, this soundtrack is iconic. I did not remember anything about sailor moon, but when this started (from my childhood) but when i started watching it, the second the "moon-" i believe it's dundetsu (densestsu) or something like that, that's the name of it, as soon as it started playing it triggered my memory and i was like "oh my god, i remembered this melody my whole entire life, i didn't remember that it was from sailor moon, but i did remember the melody" and that is just perfect for a show like that, because as much as a lot of music in

18:36 a lot of shows is good, especially a lot of original music that's written for shows, it's usually pretty good, it's not as catchy or as memorable or as iconic as a lot of sailor moon's music is. There's things like for example Usagi's moonstick melody, each time she would do one of her attacks with a moon stick (i believe it was the healing escalation one) okay it's definitely inspired by some european royal court music, maybe something from like 18th century? i might be completely wrong, but that's just what it reminds me of, and i'd say that it's just- every time it would start playing, it would enhance the experience. You would be excited to hear it

19:22 each time, because it's so catchy and you like it so much, because the sound was picked really well it doesn't- it's not annoying to re-watch an attack, or to re-watch a transformation sequence because the music is so good, you just kind of get into it, you know, each time and it's perfect! just perfectly chosen, absolutely fantastic! there's other recognizable melodies like tuxedo mask's theme not my favourite- my personally my favourite, but it's very iconic, definitely gets stuck in your head. The beautifully, deliciously evil electric guitar that plays every time you kind of get introduced to the new monster of the week, or to the current opponent plotting.

20:18 The background tracks that usually slip under the radar due to them being not quite there, being kind of bland, have no place here to be honest. This transformation music: there's also a Sailor Uranus Sailor Neptune transformation music: there's this theme that's a very sad melody that Michiru plays usually on her violin

21:11 there's just so many pieces for people to appreciate, for people who like classical music arrangements and or futuristic synths, this starlight transformation sequence music it's just so otherworldly, just really makes you feel like it's a bunch of aliens transforming into senshies, you know? like there's a- definitely a difference between the original senshi music and starlight Senshi, music and i really like that. That's kind of- it fits them really well for some of the attack sound effects, the creators chose the perfect sound effect. My

21:58 favourite example for that would be the Uranus world shaking attack sound in the beginning: This deep plunging synth sound, i absolutely adore it, this sound is really something! i don't know what they laced it with, but it's addicting! it's genuinely addicting, i was so excited each time uranus would show up with her world shaking, because just that room sound was so satisfying with the animation of her just like collecting that energy in her hand absolutely fantastic! great choice! from these goofy background melodies that are kind of perfect for Usagi's shenanigans when she's in her civilian form, to heart wrenching violins like this:

22:59 there's also this (not in the show it's part of this special edition thing) but i would recommend to listen to "flame sniper" song, that's supposed to be by rei, by sailor mars, it's a goddamn banger and it's just such a good attack too, such a great attack! i love it, oh! it's just so good!

23:58 so, the first pro we're going to talk about is "fantastic slapstick comedy, the overall comedic timing". The rhythm of line deliveries is genuinely top tier in general, this show is definitely funny. Whenever they have those slapstick moments, they really do work. It's both partially due to the animation, as we discuss in the art section as well, as in part it's due to the writing, because it definitely works well together. There are obviously some people who don't like this type of humour, but i think it's well done here, the stylistic choices for presenting characters emotions are really well done, as well as the voice actors are really doing a great job. They definitely make the show come alive. I'm talking about the original sound of course, the original voice actors in Japanese, but

24:45 i also am talking about the Viz dub. With other dubs, there's one where Usagi sounds like an old lady, which is- it just doesn't suit her at all! but the this dub i think is done really well, even though a lot of people are really against dubs, I'd say that you have to have respect for people who try to deliver the lines in a new language that's not the original language and try to make it more accessible to more people. I'm pretty used to subs in general just because of not being an anglophone, so it's like- it's like okay with me, i don't mind it, but i also do appreciate when it's done really well, because it is a lot of work, and it is really important to do for distribution purposes of shows. so, i'm gonna also show a few examples of slapstick comedy in this show done

25:32 really well, there's a lot of examples but there's a couple that are- they kind of immediately came to mind. obviously, a lot of scenes from the episode that i'm playing right now, but also the Chibiusa moment when she attacks the monster with her pink sugar heart attack, and it doesn't work Chibiusa: "pink sugar heart attack!" it's a really well choreographed, well-timed moment with a lot of good physical comedy, and my favourite, my most favourite moment out of probably the entirety of this series,

26:18 i'm not gonna lie, if i ever show someone a clip of sailor moon, it will always be this; it's Mimet at the stadium, at the sports stadium. Mimete: "luckily the stadium has emptied out, so the two of us can be alone now!" "i'm not going to let a no unauthorized personnel sign come between me and my Hayase!" "huh?" "fine! keep your stupid sign"

27:11 it's just the timing of everything is so perfect, the sound effects, the delivery - amazing! I love it so much it's really good. Okay, so we're gonna talk right now about a con and this con is gonna be a doozy. What i call this con is "oftentimes shallow relationships with guys take priority over things like relationships with family slash friends". This show is a predecessor to a lot of other shows that have put friendship of the main cast, or family, above anything else in the case of sailor moon, the friendships and the way that they are treated by the writers are very strange, because they keep on jumping around in terms of logic. It's treated like a trivial thing sometimes, and then it's treated like the most important thing other times. It's very inconsistent, which is- in terms of messaging- it's inconsistent. There's a lot of underlying moments

28:01 that kind of suggest that friendships are not that important based on some people's actions, but then at the same time, there are some moments where it's the exact opposite. There's also multiple occasions in the show where someone says something along the lines of "oh girls' friendships are weak, they're unreliable" and it wouldn't be important, and i wouldn't even mention it if it was only spoken by the characters that are like villains, you know? or antagonists, because it would fall into the line of them not believing in love, not believing in friendship, not believing in goodness, kindness, whatever... as it usually is in a lot of shows that are based on good versus bad structure. But in this case, we have a few moments where the main characters, the protagonists are the ones who are saying something along the lines of criticizing girls friendships as

28:50 a whole, as a monolith. Which is really really strange to do in a show like this. Of course it seems like it's a problem specifically of the 90s anime, it seems like the original story doesn't involve that, however, i am not 100% sure if there's any other quotes that maybe i missed somewhere if you've seen something along these lines, the same kind of messaging as an anime in manga, please correct me, but from what I remember, from what I've seen, it seems to be an anime issue which is, once again, comes down to the fact that a lot of backwards thinking men were making this show too, they were part of the process, so of course there's going to be a lot of weird messaging that comes out of left field. One of the examples that kind of really threw me off because it doesn't work with the character, it doesn't work for the story, and it doesn't work for the

29:37 overall logic of the world of sailor moon is the moment where Mako says this: "once there's a problem, friendships between girls can crack and fall apart quick, so i think the sooner we get those two seeing eye to eye again, the better". This makes zero sense for mako's character in general. She's actually one of those friends that are reliable, it seems really strange that mako would ever say something like that. There's another example of things like that with reI and usagi specifically in the anime as well, where Rei is dating- first of all, she dates Mamoru, it's like i know that a lot of people don't like that, i understand why, because- I mean, i also don't really like that, just because i don't think that it suits her character considering that she was kind of not very fond of relationships, or interested in relationships ever in the manga, except for the Casablanca lilies side

30:27 story. It was obviously a very strange choice, but what was even more strange about it is the fact that they have this weird competition over mamoru. It's just- it doesn't fit the characters, one of the most glaring inconsistencies in this friendship slash romance department is the way that romance would quite literally corrupt the ideals of characters, without an understandable reason. an example that i want to talk about again, is from that episode on the boat with usagi, minako and her friend from britain. what i want to talk about specifically from that episode, is the fact that Usagi was going to hurt katarina out of nowhere, considering that up to this point Usagi has only turned people back to normal and never hurt them before, it was a really weird thing to see

31:14 her disregarding her regular kind of morals. to kind of elaborate on it, you need to know that the situation in general was about Venus having a crush on a guy who was significantly older than her, at least 25, and Minako was like- oh god, 14 at best? probably even 13 to be honest, at that point it's really really really bad, and katarina was the one who dated him later on... she didn't know about her feelings and after an accident venus left, katarina and that guy were dating and they didn't know that she was still alive and stuff like that, in any case, in the situation it's a little bit strange to ever feel like katarina even did anything wrong, because she, first of all, didn't know about her feelings, second of all, Minako was a child, a 13 year old, 14 year old at best. obviously

31:59 she wouldn't be even thinking that she would be offending minako by dating this guy, you know? now that they met again, minako asks usagi not to hurt katarina, and this is what usagi says: "how could you want to be nice to her?! she stole the guy that you love". Even though Usagi is boy crazy, we all know that, and romance is extremely important to her, we know that, you cannot tell me that a girl that has a hard time hurting her enemies that literally kill her friends in front of her, usagi that helped all the spectre sisters to redeem themselves, that tried to just hug it out and turn every murderous villain to the good side, would just hurt katarina, an innocent woman, just like that. Takeuchi herself has talked about how difficult it was to retain her vision in both manga and anime due to a lot of old

32:50 people on the board, due to all those old people being men as well, and not agreeing with her vision or with her ideas a lot of the time. she said: "back then i thought i'm gonna show this old grandpas that beautiful girl characters can be good for business, and i'm not leaving my concept in the hands of old men, so i had to work hard to develop a sense of beauty and elegance in my characters, no matter what their type was. back then, the old men editors at nakayoshi magazine thought that i was being stubborn, but they didn't much care for the opinions of lady authors. it was a difficult time" she had to even fight for the colour scheme, for ideas of having usagi with blonde hair, or with originally she wanted her to have white hair, and had to settle on blonde hair, which they still weren't happy with because they didn't think that blonde was a good hair colour. i don't know... she basically had to fight for every little thing, i'm not surprised that there would be

33:39 inconsistencies, especially in the anime, where they had to do a lot of filler and where they were given a little bit more freedom because takeuchi was really busy with making the main story work. i kind of like- i understand why there's like inconsistencies like that, and i hope that you understand that too, because you can tell that it's not all takeuchi's fault, if anything is to be honest. so, now on to dangerous messaging about romance number two: Koan and Rubeus, and Usagi and Mamoru advice inconsistency; so, there's an episode that kind of shows this parallel between two relationships. Both relationships being in kind of a turbulent state. At this point Mamoru cruelly broke up with usagi, not telling her what the real reason is, i guess at this point what usagi thinks is that the reason why is that he doesn't think that they should be dating just because they

34:25 dated in the past life. He didn't tell her the real reason. now, he also has been quite cruel to her afterwards with rejecting her and other things like that, we've got a few examples of that already by that point. With koan, she is shown to be infatuated with Rubeus, who sends her mixed signals sometimes he is extremely nice to her, then he turns around and immediately he's cruel to her again, so now, because koan in this episode pretends to be a makeup sales woman, she gets to talk to rei and usagi directly without them knowing that they are rivals for a little bit, so they talk about their current romantic entanglements and rei says this: "just believe in him, no matter how coldly he treats you, eventually he's bound to come around and things will go back to normal again!" usagi: "you really think so?" Rei: "it'll be fine!". Which is not like her at all, but Koan disagrees while she is

35:16 also following this advice 100%, because Rubeus is nothing but a dink to her, so then she proposes that usagi should move on and focus on makeup and fashion to make herself desirable, which is something that this show continually does with the spectre sisters... the show's narrative is adamant at convincing the audience that being evil is somehow connected to being into makeup, fashion and your looks, and if you care about those things you're gonna end up like koan; in love with someone like rubeus, who treats you badly because you're shallow or something along those lines. weird messaging but the parallel between usagi and mamoru and koan and rubius is even worse; here we have two couples in which both women are being treated poorly, with the men constantly switching between behaviour that

36:02 suggests affection and then followed by cruelty, both usagi and koan can only guess about what's going on, why they're being treated this way. There is zero communication, and through the interaction between the three girls at the table it's clear that the messaging of the show heavily relies on the fact that the audience knows true intentions of these two men, but the truth of the matter is that neither one of the women do. So, the situation is virtually the same but they're treated differently, until the very final confrontation with rubeus there really isn't any difference between what Koan knows about her relationship with rubeus and what usagi knows about her relationship with Mamoru. both are just asked to have blind faith, with evidence pointing towards abuse rather than just like a rift in a relationship. the most important quote is of

36:50 course by rei at the table, because she is one of the main characters and usagi is too. usagi and mamoru's relationship is holding on only due to their past lives where they were briefly together and the fact that usagi should have some trust into him, because he might help her in battle, which is also kind of paralleled by what what rei does with yuichiro; she was really mean to him at the beginning of the episode, which i don't understand why, again, it's inconsistencies of character it's really confusing, and then at the end they're fighting and she says all this stuff about how he is so great and whatever, and it's like well why didn't you treat him well? because what did he do to deserve to be treated like that most of the time, unless you are in grave danger and then you jump in front of him to save him? really doesn't make any sense. in real life we don't usually have magical battles where we could dramatically jump in front of somebody to show that we love someone

37:38 after treating them like dirt for most of the time. in real life you can only trust what you see and experience yourself on a daily basis. if someone's treating you in a cruel way like that chances are, they aren't good for you, regardless of you thinking that you're a destined couple from the moon kingdom. basically, this episode is a mess, and even though it's interesting to watch the messaging is inconsistent, while at the same time being quite dangerous for young minds to be observing. if you are somebody who has a little bit of a more complex view on relationships and you're a little bit older it's not a big deal, you- you're gonna see right through this immediately but for young people it's a little bit dangerous, I think, because it does normalize cruel and abusive behavior in everyday life, so i don't know... now onto a pro, after talking about a con for so long

38:23 the villains! the villains get a lot of time to be developed, they are in every episode. each villain that in manga would get maybe a few panels, a few pages, sometimes maybe they would be in multiple arcs if they are like a really big villain, in the anime, they definitely get more breathing room you get a lot of great villains, you get spectre sisters, they do get a lot of a better treatment in the anime because they all get a redemption arc, it's really great to see! i'm glad that they weren't very one-dimensional. all villains in each season feel like different types of people you don't get the same kind of redemption arc for everybody, or the same one-dimensional "i'm just evil" kind of behaviour most of the time their ambitions and their backgrounds, their personalities are expanded upon and in a very good way. prince Dimande and his brothers safpfir; they

39:12 also get kind of a redemption arc, i still don't like demand for obvious reasons, if you've seen the show you know why, but their redemption arc is very interesting too because it shows that most of the black moon clan weren't just evil people, in the anime at least, they have a different- they have a different background, a different reason for attacking Earth than in the manga and to be honest, i prefer the anime version of their reasoning behind what they're doing it's a little bit more interesting. you get witches 5, they get actual time, you get to know them and to be honest, characters like Mimete for example, which we already talked about her a little bit, she gets this whole personality and like basically she owes everything to the anime because it definitely does a lot for her character, because she gets to really shine and gets an actual personality. she genuinely

40:00 needs to get some kind of award for that stadium scene,, her as a character a drawn character we get nehelenia, which is- she's also, she's a confusing character, because her background is a little bit questionable in terms of a lot of logical kind of issues in the world building but she's a great character, one of the things that worked extremely well in my opinion is sailor galaxia's character, i really liked the way that they approached explaining the phenomenon of chaos i really like that eventually they arrived at this explanation that the reason why sailor galaxia was corrupted is because she took all of the negativity and she stopped it herself all the evilness, she kind of concentrated all of it and sealed it away, but basically the reason why she couldn't withstand it is because evil should be spread upon every living thing

40:48 because if it's spread across everyone, everyone can battle it within themselves, because it's not an overwhelming amount of evil, and i thought that was a really good kind of explanation for this which is very sophisticated for a show like this, in terms of just- usually in shows where there's a lot of magic and other things like that involved, evil is usually explained as something that people just happen to fall under the influence of, or sometimes if it's a little bit more new agey you get this whole structure of well evil depends on the eye of the beholder, whichever side you're on, blah blah blah blah, but in this case it kind of takes it a bit in a different direction which i really liked. Saying that basically if you just put all the responsibility upon one person that person is not gonna last, that person is not gonna be able to just sacrifice themselves and take care

41:35 of everything and everyone, because chaos is gonna break out anyway, but if everyone is responsible for battling their own evilness that's inside of them, and they take responsibility of those little parts that are in themselves then it could be managed, which i think is a really interesting way of approaching this type of villain story or explaining evil in this universe, talking about galaxia leads us to another pro; the last season! sailor stars is fantastic! usually last seasons don't live up to the hype, because it's difficult, it's difficult to do! you have so much buildup and sometimes people don't know how long this story is gonna last, so there's some peaks and some valleys that are kind of not quite working with the structure of the overall show because they can't predict when it's gonna actually end, you know? in this case we actually get this final season

42:22 that feels larger than the other ones, it feels more high stakes than the other ones, of course the praise is going to Naoko Takeuchi because the story itself is really interesting and it does end in a satisfying way and it manages to introduce new characters that you get to love and introducing characters in the very last season can be very difficult without them feeling like fan least favourites, you know? usually they don't get that much love but with the star fighter, star maker, and star healer you actually get quite a great addition to the cast, talking about seiya leads me to another Con: which is the lost potential of mamoru and usagi; we all know that the 90s version of Mamoru is kind of like- he's a jerk, and he's not like that in the manga. when i was watching

43:08 the show i didn't know about everything in the manga yet and people were kind of commenting when i was talking about it in a community post that he's a lot better in the manga and that they like their relationship in the manga, that's why they prefer usagi with mamo rather than with seiya, i'd say that mamoru's and usagi's relationship is so important for the show and for the story in general that it makes sense that they are the ones that stay together and stuff like that, i wouldn't want to challenge that because a lot of things are holding on to this union in this story, however, i think that it was mishandled in both anime and the manga. i know that they get more time in the manga but they are getting a lot more time as a couple already, that kind of goes through situations and gets better as a couple, but they don't actually get a good ramp up to their relationship in their new lives, basically, they could have been really interesting, they could have gotten a lot of

43:57 people on their side and i will expand on that in another point that's gonna be specifically about their development of their relationship but right now i need to mention the differences between adaptations, because the anime adaptation definitely makes it a lot worse because first of all, the age difference. this is something that we need to talk about, because it's not just the thing that happens with mamo and usagi, it's something that happens with virtually everybody on the show except for the lgbtq plus relationships, genuinely. first of all Mamoru in the manga is only a year and a half- close to two years older than usagi, he's not that much older than her, so she was in the last year of middle school, 14 years old, he was in like first or second year of high school, which is like 16 years old, like he just turned 16 or something like that, so they were really

44:44 close in age, there wasn't any creepy differences between their positions in society even, because the thing is... in the anime she's a middle schooler and Mamoru is a college student, that's not even that's not even a senior in high school(usagi), that's like- he's in college. boy's like legal age, and she's not even close, like not even- not anywhere close the legal line, and i know that it's a different there are different laws in Japan, but it doesn't really matter, because we all have different laws there are so many states in america where you could marry a child, it doesn't make it good, it doesn't make it normal, it does not make it okay. don't bring the law into this, because things like this are just not normal. especially, when they are a pattern. there is this unsettling normalization of inappropriate relationships all over the place, someone should make a whole list of them.

45:35 so I did! let's go over them. minako, mako and the principal. there's an episode where they go to a preschool, and they are helping out there and the girls have a crush on this principle and they're genuinely pursuing him and not a single one of them goes "okay you guys, like he's kind of too old for you", you know? at least make that comment, like they could have their childish you know crushes on whoever they want, but somebody needs to at least mention that that's not normal the only thing that kind of stops this whole weird pursuit that they have going on is the fact that one of the preschoolers is actually his child, so i was right, he's definitely not appropriate for them in terms of age, but it's a thing, and nobody calls it out. now second of all, naru and nephrite. oh well this one... this one is really really something. i specifically picked this image of naru

46:21 and nephrite to compare to what the boys who are appropriate in age should actually be looking like for naru and usagi. this is a boy from their classroom on the bottom, and this is nephrite. i think that if someone doesn't see how weird it is because- because the show portrays it as a normal thing, i think that comparing nephrite to the guys who were actually the right age for these girls would really put everything in perspective. just look at it! look how different they look weird! the next one - usagi and Mamoru, obviously, mamo was literally a college student she's in middle school. usagi, minako and mako and motoki; motoki such a weird character... there's some moments where he actually says something when he talks about his girlfriend where he's like "oh i don't want to be keeping her away from her dreams, i don't want her to not do what she wants to do

47:10 because of me" and stuff like that, you're like "oh, like you seem like a nice guy" and then you realize that he has three girls who are obsessed with him, who are definitely very inappropriate for him too, because he's also a college student just like Mamoru, they're literally at his house cleaning up his apartment, because it's really dirty, because he doesn't clean after himself... a grown adult! and they're cooking for him and stuff like it's such a weird- there's like an episode that's all about that, and it's it's weird, okay? it's weird! especially considering that he sees that (especially mako) is really taken with him, he just kind of uses it to his advantage to get her to clean and cook for him. weird!! gross! you can definitely tell that he knows that they were into him because he is not happy with how they react to haruka when haruka appears and they're like looking- they're watching haruka leave and they talk about how haruka is so attractive and he

47:58 kind of goes "😤" like he doesn't like it, you know? so you know that the guy is aware of what he's doing and this is gross.; next one chibiusa and mamo. well this one is wrong on so many levels, and like we'll talk about it, because this is... this is a whole other con, because it's so insane that we're gonna get back to it. Chibiusa and pegasus. pegasus, again, first of all, he's a horse! alright, a unicorn, still- weird. i know that he's a boy in a form of a unicorn still the boy is like at least five to six to maybe eight years older than chibiusa depending on what her age is supposed to be, i know that it's supposed to be 900 years but in the anime she's not 900 years old, it's not canon in the anime, so she's around seven to nine years old maybe 10 years old right? the boy is looking at least 14 to 16. he looks appropriate for usagi, not for chibiusa. we

48:48 already talked about that, again, it shows a pattern with Mamoru too, dimande and usagi; weird as well and not only for the reason of the age, you know why that is, i don't even want to get into that. Minako and tiger's eye. tiger's eye... i don't know how old they're supposed to be, because they're they're not technically that old because they were created from animals, you know, but they look like they're about 25 and again it's not appropriate for minako. Minako and hawks eye - same thing rei's granddad being a creep to young girls. it's like a whole thing, and it's supposed to be like funny or something I guess? the only person who calls it out is rei. mako talking about an older guy over and over and entertaining Chibiusa dating a 30 year old guy at the park. it was so weird in that episode when they were trying to figure out who Chibiusa has like a crush on or whatever, the way that they were talking about it... i was really happy that rei was really calling out

49:36 mako about constantly talking about an older guy, it's like- she's nine, why would you even... and also there's one moment where usagi is like talking to mamo and she's like "oh my god like now that i'm gonna be 16 we could get married!". 16? what is this child bride behaviour? no thank you stop it! stop it, go study! this is ridiculous. the thing is, this show was made for girls for young girls, which makes this that much worse and makes it feel like our minds were preyed upon, as one of the commenters in my community post about the show said, butter bubble said: "the worst part is sailor moon isn't directed at boys/men, it is directed at young girls. for millennials men have been dictating girls preferences and conditioning us to settle and accept the bare minimum, or even less than that. we learn what men prefer in a romantic relationship at a very young age and they

50:24 tell us what we prefer. it's so gross they exploit our childhoods like that. and clearly the creators prefer little girls to be young and impressionable so they may be roomed. sickening. but we've always existed to be objects of desire, not subjects with desire". and i agree with that, because it definitely has that kind of pattern. the issue is that sailor moon is not the only one that did that, it's um it will be more problematic if this show was made in 2020 and we would be seeing this glaring pattern happening right now. based on other things that happened in the show you can tell that the show was very progressive for its time, but it still has like- it still shows a lot of those kinds of relationships that were normalized for us, and i think that it's important for us to critically look at it nowadays. it doesn't mean that you can't watch and enjoy the show for other

51:10 reasons, but you can criticize this as long as you want to, and it would be valid I think. now the second point is "the whole breakup shouldn't have been a thing in the show since it never happened in the manga". it makes it a lot worse as i said with rubeus and Koan, it makes it way too similar to those types of relationships, and i think that if they would have done it, it should have been an actual breakup, or maybe not even a breakup but rather have them not date each other immediately when they find out that they actually were in love in their past life, because based on what we know they have very basic understanding and basic memories of what happened before, they don't actually have memories of each other from the previous life, it's just like a feeling you know and i think that it would have been a lot better if they actually let them fall in love on screen again, and they could have shown us how they fell in love in the past life as well, instead of just

52:00 drawing them looking- gazing into each other's eyes and just having this voiceover of "this warmth seems so familiar to me". okay? and? who is Mamoru? who is usagi? who are they when they are together? i don't care, and i want to care, because this relationship is definitely very important for the story, it's very important for the way that it's approached and the the entirety of the world building is holding on to them. i want them to be better! i want to be on their team! i want to be on their side without being told to be on their side, i want you to show me why i should be on their side, do you know what I mean? that's why many people prefer Seiya and Usagi because they actually got that, they actually got the build up. they also get like a tragic love story of "i wish i met you sooner" or whatever, which is also- you know tugs on a lot of people's heartstrings. basically, show me

52:48 don't tell me. don't tell me how to feel, show me why i have to care. now a pro! we're back to pros filler episodes! they actually give a lot of room for characters to develop, and it's great! this is of course somewhat misused sometimes which is a con for some people, that's why people infamously talk about sailor moon fillers and other fillers in other shows because of course they're going to be inconsistencies in messaging, as i said before naoko doesn't take care of every single word that the characters were saying in the anime especially when it's not the main storyline. it led to a lot of characters having room to breathe, especially, most notably, haruka and Michiru, these two are fantastic in this show! we'll talk about them a bit more in another point in the writing section and another point in the world building section but they are fantastic characters that were handled

53:33 with a lot of care and a lot of character. the crystal version of sailor moon shows that without some filler the anime can feel rushed and the characters are just catching up with the story all the time, which is not too bad for crystal, because crystal is not the first- it's not the original source material, it is not the first anime to be made. most people that are watching crystal are probably familiar with either the manga or they're familiar with the 90s anime or both, so they don't have to work as hard to make us like the characters that they're showing. however, that does mean that if you start with crystal you might not actually get into the story that much because the characters... they're genuinely just catching up with whatever is going on on the screen, they don't have a lot of time to just talk or even just throw a glance or two you know? it's a lot of jumping

54:21 ahead. con! weird masculinity issues and characters having questionable morals that are entangled with those issues. there are a few examples that i have to mention that kind of illustrate my point really well. so Usagi goes on a vacation with her family and she has the tuxedo mask- like that little watch thing or whatever it is the one that plays music, and it falls out of her coat or whatever because of her brother. her dad asks her if it's a gift from a boy, to which she kind of says "uh yeah kinda I guess it is", blah blah blah... so this is what her father does: Dad: "what? a boyfriend?!" Usagi: "dad, what are you doing??!" dad: "have you been secretly dating someone??". so he did this because he was mad that she could be, potentially, dating?? he is a father, with two children and a wife in a car

55:12 he is responsible for all of their lives because he is at the wheel, and instead of being an adult he starts driving recklessly. he literally lets go of the wheel entirely, just lets them drive into traffic, into opposing traffic, by the way, because of his "fatherly" protective behaviour that somehow is concerned with usagi maybe dating someone, but not concerned with his children's lives that are in the car with him. a car that he is responsible for driving. what the hell is that? ew! there are also multiple situations in the show where men are acting like it's only important to help or save people in brackets (women) that they are attracted to. one example of that would be Yuichiro saying that he would save rei when her and usagi were covered by the avalanche. Yuichiro: "don't you worry rei, i'll

55:59 save you!" same thing happens quite often where the language would suggest that they're there to help the girl that they're attracted to, where like any sane person who has the means to help would help whoever is in that kind of danger. i don't like it. i think that it kind of shows something wrong with the inner character of the person if they are only thinking that it's important to save people that they're attracted to. like that's weird. pro! the end of season one. it's definitely an interesting point for the series because everything changes in terms of stakes all of a sudden, we kind of went from just monster of the week kind of situation and characters never getting hurt or anything like that, at least not seriously hurt, to characters literally dying one after the other. it's a little bit of a drastic change and it could feel a little weird but it

56:47 does expand the range of the show quite a bit and makes it a little bit more interesting to observe i found that the reincarnation was actually genuinely touching, i really like the way that they approached it and i think it was really well done in terms of it returning everything to the way that it was, returning them back to their normal lives with memories lost. i know that some people don't like that because it didn't happen in the manga in terms of the memories and stuff like that, but i still like it because it's in the spirit of what happens in the manga while at the same time it does set up the new arc of the first 13 episodes of the new season where they need this filler arc to wait for the next developments and story to be released so they could actually do the same story as the manga. those stills of guardians being dead are brutal and there's also this moment where rei- like she finished one of the guards, and then the other one seemingly kills her

57:38 puts her down on the ice, and then she goes "well i'm not done yet", and it was such a good moment it's a little bit weird because usagi is just like just standing there, i don't know, the way they decided to go about her- it's a little bit funny. the attack and the way that rei is actually not dead and she takes care of the last guard and then she dies is really powerful, really well done! and it's really interesting to see because this is the battle where they actually get to do some damage you know? it's really cool to see. a con! creepy, weird unsettling scenes. they were more rampant

58:25 in the first season, we've talked about this, but an example (one of the few) would be this getting ready for a date thing: Usagi: "the first rule of getting ready for a date - wear a clean pair of underwear!" like what the heck was that why are we all the sudden talking like the first thing for getting ready for a date is underwear? why? why was that even mentioned? was that- that's just hygiene why are we talking about it? i don't get it! "unsettling dynamics, normalization of some creepy behaviour". this point is specifically for chibiusa mamoru and usagi. i've mentioned it before it's kind of an extension of that point. i just kind of needed to elaborate on it because this one is a doozy, okay? this point has been talked about a lot by so many people, i've noticed that some people in like the comments of like different types of videos that I watched, people were trying to defend

59:12 it. i don't think it needs to be defended, just say that it's weird and move on. the whole thing was poorly handled by the creators, i genuinely don't know what the hell is going on most of the time in terms of that- in terms of those Chibiusa moments, like i don't know why Naoko wrote that i don't know why she decided to go about it this way, but Chibiusa having some weird feelings towards mamoru is a little bit weird, but you know what, she's a child! so it's forgivable because you're like well, she's- she's like- she could have any types of feelings and just think that it's a crush or something, she's a child, you don't take it seriously. the problem is that even though a lot of people blame mamoru for this, and you know what, i'm always first to say bad things about 90s anime Mamoru, but in this case, he actually did not entertain any of it, he never responded to it, he never said anything, he just ignored it like an adult would, because you

59:59 would just kind of go "oh, that's silly!" you know? you just- you don't understand the difference between different types of relationships or whatever that's funny like, "oh! a child" you know? you kind of just... you don't take it seriously. however, usagi on the other hand is the one that by taking it seriously and getting jealous- without her being jealous, without her making it a thing, it would

…